


Midnight

by Pingoodle (ThatAloneOne)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2020-11-27 09:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/Pingoodle
Summary: It's midnight, which means Don is about to have his favourite dream about a beautiful woman.Or: the woman of Don's dreams is about to eat him alive. And not in a sexy way.





	Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Do I need to backdate and post all my publically availible original short stories? No. Do I have other stuff I really need to be doing? Yes. Hence: voila.

It was midnight, but to be honest, Don wasn’t particularly impressed. _Some_ people said midnight was ominous, but those people apparently had never drank coffee in their life. Insomnia, people. It existed. Midnight was no different than eleven or one. There was no such thing as a witching hour.  
  
The only thing even slightly unusual about midnight was the role it played in Don’s recurring dream. He would always wake to the sight of his clock blinking a red twelve at him. Then, the dream would draw back, the room pulling into focus bit by bit. First the bed, the sheets starched tight to the bed, then the faint smell of cedar that Don could trace to his expensive bedside table. It was as predictable as the mailman, come to pepper Don with bills.  
  
Last to appear, after the mundane finishes, was the woman. That made the exhaustion this dream always brought worth it. She was as tall as Don, matching his not-insignificant height with a lanky grace. She always wore a white nightdress, short sleeved and hemmed in lace above her knees, and her ebony hair always hung in a perfect bell around her porcelain face.  
  
She was a doll. A relic from an age when women knew _respect_. And she was his, all his.  
  
The woman smiled, as she always did. The smile was a sweet little thing, small enough that her teeth stayed hidden. “Hello.”  
  
Don grinned right back, drinking in the sight of her rosy cheeks, the sprinkling of skin made visible through the holes in her lace nightgown. A gift, barely wrapped. It had been far too long since she’d appeared to him. “Well _hello_ indeed, sweetheart. It’s been a while.”  
  
“I know,” the woman said, and sighed. Don could hear her breathing like a metronome. He always did his best to wreck her till she gasped and panted and screamed, but no matter what he did, he could always hear her even breaths. In and out. In and out. “I know, darling. I’ve missed you."  
  
As she should. Don chuckled. “Same for me. Where _have_ you been?” He took stock of her body, her perfect curves and demure siren beauty. “You haven’t been up to anything… naughty?”  
  
The woman shrugged, twining her hands into the sheer fabric of her gown. It shifted up over her knees, baring perfect white skin. “Here and there. Everywhere.” Her eyes were hooded as she watched him watch her — like he was the one that had been giving them grief, instead of her damnable dream self. “Why haven’t you called me?"  
  
Don’s eyebrows furrowed. Talkative today, was she? Oh, he’d enjoy that. Once this business, whatever it was, was cleared up.. oh, he had ideas. “Call you?"  
  
The woman sat on his bed and beckoned with a single finger, a promise even Don couldn't miss sparkling in her bottomless eyes. “Yes, dear.” She reached for him as he stepped towards the bed, claiming his hands in her own. “You have to invite me in.”  
  
Don settled on the bed beside her and settled an arm across her delicate shoulders. She was piping hot, the heat of her warming Don in more ways than one. In her silence, he _did_ recall wishing for her today. The bitch at work had been having a real field day, spent the whole day insulting Don and calling him a pig instead of doing her damned job. He didn’t know what he’d ever seen in that frigid shrew. Not when he had the woman of his dreams — literally — to go home to. What did Nancy get off on, turning him away? It wasn’t like she had men lining up at the door.  
  
Even in the dream, warm in his woman’s arms, Don snorted. The men fled from her, more like.  
  
“What’s wrong, dear?” The woman was tracing a distracting finger up his chest, following the trail of buttons to his throat and back down again. He’d forgotten to change out of his work button up in his haste to be in bed before midnight struck. The woman looped one of her legs over his, sliding up into his lap before he could speak — not that he wanted to, with her moving like that. “Are you alright?”  
  
Don cleared his throat, uselessly. The woman traced another line of fire down his front, tugging his shirt out from beneath his belt. “Work was awful today. Nancy from HR had the _nerve_ to turn down my generous invitation to-“ Don's breath caught as the woman ground down with deliberate pressure. “Gala, but- doesn’t matter.” His thoughts were draining away, to somewhere far away. “Bitch."  
  
The woman’s cupid’s bow lips parted. “Why would she do that?” She leant back to survey him, her legs locking around his waist. Don groaned. “You’re quite a… catch.” She pressed her lips to his and kissed him long and deep. When they broke apart to catch their breaths, hers rasping and quick, her eyes were swimming with concern and something more. If Don hadn’t been so distracted, the inky depths might have been unnerving. “Aren’t you, dear?”  
  
Don scowled, but only for a moment. The woman had turned her attention to the buttons of his shirt again, undoing the top three to get her hands on his shoulders, his back. The warmth of them was intoxicating. “She’s a harpy, that’s why. Doesn’t know what’s right for her."  
  
The woman shook her head in commiseration, her glossy hair rippling. Her hot mouth found the corner of his jaw, his neck, and Don went slack under her ministrations. “Of course. And I’m what’s right for you.” She leaned in once more, her teeth scraping against his pulse. “Right, dear?”  
  
“Yes, yes, of course.” Don let thoughts of Nancy wash away under the woman’s touch, drowned in the feel of her body on his, her hands roaming across his shoulders. “You’re always welcome to me.”  
  
The woman chuckled, low and satisfied, and toppled him back onto the bed. She ripped the rest of his shirt open, buttons scattering and pinging across the floor. She kissed and devoured him, still hovering above him, not quite touching. Don reached for her, tugging at her nightgown, attempting to shove it up past her thighs. He knew what was coming, what the dream always gave him.  
  
But it didn’t. The nightgown stayed cemented in place, as implacable as gravity. After a futile moment’s struggle, he opened his eyes, staring up at the woman above him. She wasn’t much more than a silhouette, an outline of perfection.  
  
In the darkness, he caught the gleam of her smile. Her lips moved, and she said, “Wake up."

* * *

Don woke to the sound of a lawnmower. His window was open, spilling beams of sunlight and the smell of freshly cut grass. Though some people found the scent pleasant, to Don, it was disgusting. Shredded plant matter didn’t mean anything but unpleasantness.

He groaned in disappointment when he saw his clock. Seven in the morning. It was his one day off, the one day he would have to sleep in and stay with the woman. Tomorrow, he’d have to go back to work with Nancy the harridan. He sighed, and regretted it, the smell of dying grass filling his lungs.

Then Don sat straight up in bed. Something was off. Something was wrong. He fumbled for his chest, but his shirt was gone. He had fallen asleep in it, hadn’t he?

Don scrambled out from beneath his blankets and nearly slipped on something round on the floor. He bent to see it, cursing, the hairs on the back of his neck still standing up from the subtle wrongness in the room.

It was a button.

The floor was scattered with them, and the shirt he had been wearing last night lay discarded at the foot of the bed, torn at the lapels. Only the first two buttons were hanging on, the second by a single thread.

For a moment Don stared, but finally gave in to a laugh. It had been a late night last night, he remembered that much. He’d barely gotten home before midnight. He must’ve torn the shirt off before crawling into bed. Stupid of him, really. Shirts weren't cheap.

At least he’d beaten the mental block. He could still taste his reward, the vanilla and cinnamon of the woman’s lips, still hear…

Still hear her, breathing.

Don turned, his foot skidding across another handful of buttons. The woman stood in the corner, her hands folded in her gown, real and solid as she always was. Don checked the clock again, but he knew before he looked that it wasn’t midnight. Birds had joined the lawnmower’s song outside his window, a cacophony of early morning irritation.

Don’s mouth went dry, the taste of vanilla souring into something more like lemon. “You’re not real,” he told her, sternly. He couldn’t make sense of her soft smile, the gentle sounds of her. Here, in his room, when the bedspread was rumpled and the clock far from midnight. “You’re a dream!"

“A dream?” she mused. Her voice sent a shiver up his spine, as did her step closer. Her gaze was fastened on her lacy hem, demure as ever. “Do you feel like you’re dreaming?”

Don backed away without realizing it, his foot hitting the end of his bed. His heart pounded in his chest, the pleasure of his dream faded in the light of day. “You’re from my dreams. Not reality.” He waved a hand at the open window, the tarnished doorknob. The kind of details that had never made it into his fantasies. “Not here!”

The woman laughed, her head thrown back. When she lowered it, her smile was wide enough to show teeth for the first time since Don had met her. They were jagged and numerous, entire rows of them, like a shark. “I was, dear, but then you were kind enough to invite me out.”

Her hair was floating around her shoulders in defiance of gravity and common sense, dark as ink and spreading.

Before Don could blink, she had eaten the ground between them. Her finger traced the line of his jaw, her sweet dark eyes hidden behind long lashes. She whispered, her scarlet lips close to his, like it was a grand secret, “And you were never quite right, anyway. I was from your nightmares.”


End file.
